THE LAST OF THE PARTRIDGES; OR, SPORT IN DEEP SNOW. "The snow has ceased to fall; the gloomy clouds, Retiring like disbanded troops, disperse In all directions, and leave heaven's wide plain Abates not, but with persevering spleen Stiffens the new-fall'n snow." ANON. Our last sport with the partridges this year was in the deep snow, and as it is not in all parts of the country that such sport as we were favoured with is to be had, we shall be excused for giving our readers a brief statement of our adventures on the occasion referred to. It was just about the middle of January in this present year that we went out of town on a visit to a friend in the country, with a view to a little more partridge-shooting, by way of coup de grace to our sports in the fallows for the season, ere our rapidly expiring game-certificates became no longer a protection. Now, it so happened that the country residence of our friend was in one of those parts abounding with partridges; but alas! the majority of them were "red-legs," or French partridges, which, as every English sportsman knows, are-next to vermin-the greatest pests that can infest a manor. Happily for English sportsmen, the red-legs have not found their way very far inland: their range in this country extends only to two or three counties on the Eastern and North-eastern coast, and sportsmen and gamekeepers in the surrounding counties appear pretty well determined that their encroachments shall extend no farther; for every "Frenchman" that ventures to cross the borders of what may be called the Gallican range, is hunted down and pursued with a determination which seems to show that French blood shall not, at least, be farther impregnated with the English blood of our partridges. Fine and beautiful birds as they are, we believe there is not a single sportsman who would not gladly be rid of every French partridge on his estate. When full grown and well fed they are more than half as big again as English partridges; their flesh is white and delicate, but lacks that delicious game-flavour which belongs to an English partridge. It was supposed when they were first introduced into this country that they would pair and breed with English birds. Sportsmen, one and all, may congratulate themselves that such was a mistaken notion. They have never done so in the open fields, and we never heard of a cross of the kind being obtained of them in aviaries and places of confinement. On the contrary, the French birds are very pugilistic, and attack and fight the English birds whenever they meet: and the French being the larger and stronger bird, invariably obtains the mastery, and secures the ground for itself and companions. The two species have never been known to mix in covey; no instance, we believe, has ever occur, red in which a mixed covey of French and English birds has been found; they will not, in fact, associate the one species with the other, though their habits and food are identical, and the ground they occupy is shared and trodden by both; the trite old adage, "Birds of a feather flock together," is completely verified in the two distinct species of the partridge tribe. French partridges were first introduced to this country nearly a century ago by one of the Earls of Rochford, on his magnificent estate at St. Osyth, in the county of Essex. The late Marquis of Hertford also introduced them on his estates in Suffolk, and the Duke of Northumberland on his estates in Northumberland. Each of these noblemen encouraged the breeding of the French partridge for many years on their estates. The Earl of Rochford and the Marquis of Hertford imported hundreds of eggs, as well as large numbers of the young birds, for the purpose of stocking parts of their estates, and, under strict preservation, in a few years they became numerous, and were not confined to the estates of those noblemen alone who had introduced them, but they crept upon adjoining estates, and in time were spread nearly all over the counties of Essex and Suffolk. The noble sportsmen who thus introduced these birds into England could have had no idea at the time, what a pest they brought; and thinking, probably, that their nature and habits were the same as English birds, considered they were really conferring a great boon upon the country. But they could have little known what utter ruin they bring to our sport with English birds, by spoiling our dogs, and thus rendering almost useless the noble pointer, on which every English sportsman relies who treads the stubbles and fallows of this country in the season of partridge shooting. It so happened that during our sojourn with our friend in the country, we had heavy falls of snow-in fact, a deeper snow, as our friend informed us, than he had known in that part of the country for many years, and the frost, too, was very severe; it was, truly, seasonable and glorious weather for the country, and, above all things, just the weather in which to get the better of those cunning, shy, and unapproachable French partridges; which, in any but a deep snow, seem to defy the efforts of English sportsmen to rid themselves of the nuisance they are to their estates. We shall inform our readers how we set about our sport, the success we met with, and such other incidents as we think may be of sufficient interest to demand notice. But first, let us inform those of our readers who are not familiar with the nature and peculiarities of French partridges, in what way, and how it is that they are such a nuisance to a partridge manor, and annoyance to English sportsmen. In the first place, then, they do not lie still on the ground as English birds do, when the dog stops and points them, but run with all their might and main from one end of the field to the other, the moment they "twig" the dog, or suspect an enemy; the consequence is, that the sportsman walks up to his standing dog in the usual way, expecting every moment to see the covey rise at his feet; but instead of that, he has the annoyance of seeing them get up one at a time at the farther end of the field, perhaps nearly half a mile off! and thus both dog and sportsman are completely befooled. The dog becomes vexed and annoyed, and confident that his nose has not deceived him, sniffs and hunts every ridge of the field, and even then is very reluctant to leave it, for the scent of French partridges is very strong to the dog's nose. In the next place, proceeding on your beat, perhaps you come upon a covey of English birds, which your dog, instead of pointing, puts up out of range, to your great annoyance. But what can you expect of a dog, when the birds in one covey all set off running the moment the dog points them, and in the next will be still as stones if the dog will but stand? It is beyond the power of human ingenuity to teach a dog this total difference of habits in the two classes of partridges; if such knowledge could be communicated to a dog, then the difficulties attending the pursuit of the two species on the same manor would be removed, and such a dog would be valuable indeed. But, of course, a dog knows not the distinction, nor that one is a covey of runners, and the other a covey of quiet-lying birds, and, in the result, will soon discover this propensity for running in the French birds, and so instead of standing pointing, he will run too; he will also suspect that every bird he finds is a runner, and then, impatient to be off, the probability is that in his eagerness he will put up the English birds which would lie, and thus the sport is completely ruined by the presence of French birds on the manor. And so it is that in the country where French partridges are prevalent, there are no good dogs: though ever so well bred, in course of time they acquire a habit of "running in ;" and a dog with such a habit can never be relied on. In our experience we have always found dogs become unsteady when practised among French partridges, and for these reasons we never recommend our friends to purchase a dog from such a neighbourhood. In Essex particularly, where French partridges are more numerous than in any other county, to our minds neither an Essex pointer nor Essex setter is worth "a rap ;" and we should never incur the folly of purchasing a dog of the kind, though of ever so good breeding, that had been trained to partridge shooting in Essex. So much for the ruination of dogs which the introduction of French partridges has brought about. And these birds not only vex and annoy sportsmen with their peculiarities, but they also effectually puzzle him; for though he get over a fence and come ever so suddenly upon a covey of French birds, they will not get up and give him a chance of a shot, but will trust to their legs and run across the field before taking wing. In fact, they never will get up without having first had their run; they start off boldly, but they soon tire, and then they get up in the quietest and most cunning way, and glide over the hedge; but by following them up energetically, and moving them two or three times, they soon become weary of running; and, skulking in a ditch, they may be driven out by a dog, and compelled to take wing almost at the very muzzle of the gun. But they are so wild and cunning that it is difficult to mark them accurately so as to follow them up quick enough, but when this can be done they may be killed by a good shot with tolerable certainty. With these observations on the habits of French partridges, we will explain the manner in which we proceeded with our sport in the snow. And first, let us remind our readers that French partridges, however wild, are completely at the mercy of the sportsman in a deep snow; for the simple reason that they are then deprived of the very sccret of their cunning, viz., the use of their legs, for they cannot run in a deep snow with that facility which their propensity for running always teaches them to resort to, when the enemy makes his appearance in the field. They start off and make the attempt; but failing and tiring in their efforts, they take wing, and hide in the hedges and small plantations. Having taken the best precautions we could to prevent the penetration of the snow through our boots and leggings, we set out early in the morning (having breakfasted at 8 o'clock), taking with us two or three beaters and three or four dogs, and proceeded at once to "double the hedgerows," that is, to walk on both sides the hedge, one sportsman and beater on one side, and the one of each on the other, so as to drive everything out before us. Game is easily found in this way during a deep snow, for independently of beating the bushes, every footstep and track of the game that has run to the hedge can of course be traced in the snow. But the objects of our sport were exclusively the French partridges, the English ones were all to be spared; and our friend said good-naturedly, that he should inflict a fine if an English bird was shot; but he said he would rejoice if every French bird on the estate could be killed; and with a view to kill as many of them as we could, we persevered at our sport, and splendid sport it proved. All the partridges on the estate appeared to have taken refuge in the hedge-rows and brushwood. Scarcely a fence or bit of ground-cover but contained birds, and they seemed to have lost their courage, for they stuck to the fence until fairly driven out, and then they offered such easy marks, and one so seldom missed, that we began to fancy curselves unerring marksmen. It required, however, a sharp eye and careful discrimination, in order to avoid shooting at the English birds, which every now and then issued from the fences; but the others were far more numerous, and shot after shot was fired-such sport in partridge-shooting as we had never before enjoyed so late in the season. In the course of two hours and a-half we had each killed a bag full, and sent them off to the house to lighten the loads of the beaters, who, we thought, began to grow lazy under their burdens. Sometimes a pair of old birds would come creeping cunningly out of the bushes, and start off running in the snow with ramping efforts; but quickly finding the difficulty of lifting their legs high enough to run with that facility for which they are so famous, they give in, and with breasts wet and heavy with snow, they make a lazy sort of effort to rise, and then, when having fairly got upon their wings and poised themselves in the air, the sportsman stops their career (one with one barrel, and one with the other), and down they come plump upon their unconquerable enemy the snow. "Relentless Fate Demands her victims, and the thundering gun And stain the virgin-snow with crimson gore." As the day advanced, and the sun peeped out, we occasionally found a covey sitting in the snow, as if to bask in the sun. Of course they made their usual attempts to run across the field, and it was truly a very interesting race to witness, so distinctly did the snow show up their dark-looking forms on the flake-white surface; and on sending a spaniel to give chase, he would very soon have had one in his mouth had they continued to persevere in their efforts to run in the snow; but they had quite sufficient cunning to take to their wings in time to avoid such an ignominious capture. Hares and rabbits, too, came rustling out of the hedges; some of them apparently quite tamed by the cold and snow, whilst others scuttled away as if death were pursuing them at their very heels. These, however, were not the objects of our sport; our efforts were solely directed to the unsparing persecution, and extermination if possible, of the whole race of French partridges. Fence after fence was beaten, and seldom did a bird get out beyond the range of our guns, so close do they lie in the hedgerows in such weather. In some of the woods and coppices we found more difficulty; and as the better sport was to be had in the hedgerows, which by the way were chiefly large ones well grown with bushes, we confined our exertions to doubling fence after fence as we proceeded on our beat; and, in this way, with the exception of half an hour spent in a lunch in the snow-fields and a pipe of tobacco, we kept up our sport till four o'clock in the afternoon, by which time we all had pretty well as much game as we could carry; and, on counting them over on arriving at the house, we found we had killed in all forty-seven brace of fine, full grown, heavy birds: all French, with the exception of one, an English bird, which our friend had himself shot by mistake, and for which he good-humouredly said he should fine himself. After so successful a day's sport, we felt none but pleasant reflections on looking upon the results. It had, truly, been attended with a good deal of toil; for it is laborious work to be walking all day long in a newly-fallen deep snow, and occasionally encountering heavy drifts through which we had to make our way. Our readers will therefore readily understand the sort of appetites with which we sat down to dinner, and the relish with which we sipped our excellent host's "thirty-four" port. But, after all, there was yet a sweeter and more welcome pleasure, as we found on reclining our heads upon our downy pillows: sleep required no prompting; it gladly came to our senses, and enabled us to wake in the morning refreshed, invigorated, and ready for another such a day of sport and pleasure as that with which good fortune had favoured us on the day previously. Such, however, was denied us, as the morning showed signs of an approaching thaw, and soon afterwards a drizzling sleet set in, which ultimately increased to a heavy, down-pouring rain, which, in a few hours, melted a very considerable portion of the snow, and so far spoilt our sport for the time. Two days afterwards not a trace of the snow could be seen, and the fields had all resumed their more usual garb; we went out again in |